Its Beginning to Look Better

Sunday Kent spent the entire day working on his civic. He continued the bondo work and had me help him tape off so he could paint. It probably took us over an hour to get the entire car taped off. After mixing the paint, it probably only took him about 30 minutes to paint the entire thing. It was pretty fun to watch.

Below are several pictures of the car after the paint was dry. Kent really wanted to put another coat on, but I would not let him. He still has bondo work to do in the passenger side door. After he completes the bondo work he will have to repaint the entire car, so it does not make sense to put another layer on now.

Below is a picture of Kent taking off the tape he put on his headlights. You can see how daring and artist he got with the paint job. He taped over most of the headlights and left a small amount on top exposed to the paint. I think it looks pretty cool now that it is painted.

Here is the car with all the paint removed. As I said above the car still needs work, but anyone who has seen the civic in the past now that it looks better than it has. You can see on the hood where the bondo absorbed paint differently than the rest of the car. You can also see the 'zebra stripes' where the thickness of the paint varied too much. It is a good thing that Kent has the civic to practice all of these skills on. Notice that Penny likes sitting in the car while we work in the garage.

And You Thought It Couldn't Look Worse

Friday Kent came home with a paint sprayer from Harbor Freight. He decided the civic needed a better paint job. Since it was most recently painted with black spray paint I could not have agreed more. Kent sprayed one fender Friday night, and then decided that the body panels could have been straighter so he bought some Bondo.

So Saturday bondo work was our project. Kent wanted to straighten out the body line on the bottom portion of the passenger door. I tried to convince him that it would be too much work, but he got me on board by telling me it is good practice for when we start working on the '68 charger. Below are a few pictures of the work in progress.

It looks pretty terrible at the moment, but will look great once he puts paint on it. It has been raining all day today which has slowed down the progress. Hopefully he will get it in paint tonight so he has a car he can drive to work!

Backyard Makeover

Kent and I have been really busy with our house lately. We have been putting down cedar mulch and putting in some plants. Last weekend we were pulling up weeds in the backyard and Kent decided to remove the old satellite dish from one of the flower beds. He started digging around the dish and quickly realized he needed my help.

It turns out that who ever installed the dish bought an 8 foot pole to put it on, and instead of cutting the pole they dug a huge hole and filled it with concrete. It is hard to tell how deep we had to dig in this photo, but it got so deep that I could barely reach the bottom to pull more dirt out. It was hard work, but after 4 hours and some very muddy clothes we no longer have a satellite dish in our back yard.

Another big project. The last time Kent's parents came to visit they brought us this old patio furniture. It had belonged to a family friend and needs to be reupholstered. We are really excited to have something on our patio! We now have a table, 4 chairs, and a chaise lounge!

Kent's parents also brought us some fabric to redo the chairs with. I have made two seats so far. It probably took me over an hour to Kent the old fabric off and the new fabric on, but the chair looks great! The only problem is that this new fabric is not made specifically for chairs like this, it is more for cushions. So when you sit in the chair you sink about 2 inches and can feel the frame of the chair. It is not terribly uncomfortable, but its still not how it should be. We aren't sure how we are going to fix this situation. We may have to buy the proper fabric, which is about $30/yard. ouch!

Penny loves being outside hunting lizards!